A 300-Year-Old Color Swatch Book

If you think we pen geeks get a little OCD about documenting our new fountain pen inks or testing papers in various notebooks, then you’ll appreciate this. In 1692 an artist created an 800-page handwritten book of paint swatches and documenting color at that time. Many comparisons are being made between this book and the modern day Pantone swatch books. Pretty epic, huh?

Wow. This is amazing. Also interesting is to look at the handwriting. There has been discussion lately about the end of cursive handwriting. But that is what happens. Writing styles change. Even though it is in Dutch, I assume that it is difficult for anyone to pick out the letters even though he uses a very clear script for the time.